Writers Theatre opens world-class new space. How did it get here?

How did Writers Theatre, a theater that formerly spent much of its history playing to 60 people in the back of a struggling suburban book store, and then to 110 people inside an old-school women's club, pull off its own $28 million, two-theater complex, designed by a world-class architect and located right in the heart of Glencoe, one of the most affluent communities in America?

As I noted in the fall of 2013 when I broke the news of the building that, come Monday night, will be hosting an opening gala, the answers to that question are myriad. But here are a few of them.

Writers figured out early on that it would need to raise money from individuals — environs like Glencoe not generally being on the top of foundations' to-do lists. And that is exactly what it did. The new theater was predominantly paid for by Alexandra C. and John D. Nichols; Alec and Jennifer Litowitz; Gillian and Ellis Goodman; Mary Winton Green and the Green family; and Stephanie and Bill Sick. There was one more anonymous donor. That makes six families who paid the majority of the cost of the building.

I spoke to some of those donors in 2013 about the hows and the whys of their substantial contributions. To a person, they discussed the length and substance of their commitment to Writers. And here's the rub. It was clear to me that their commitment was not just a result of the donor cultivation that all good development officers do, although Writers surely did all that, nor the prestige of being associated with a Jeanne Gang building, although that helped, too. To a person, they felt a commitment to the art. I remember Ellis Goodman telling me he always felt "part of the show."

This was, I think, a reference to the intimacy of Writers' spaces and Goodman's feeling that he was breathing the same air as the art. It bespoke of an interesting paradox. The fewer seats you have in a theater, the less money you can bring in at the box office, but the more you can connect with your audience, and your audience includes your best donors. No arts organization can fund a building of this scale from ticket sales. It can from donors.

There's a stirring performance going on at Writers Theatre's new home in Glencoe even though the company won't perform its first play in the Jeanne Gang-designed building until March 16. That performance — strong but delicate, fresh without lapsing into an hollow quest for novelty, very good if...

(Blair Kamin)

The genial artistic director of Writers, Michael Halberstam, has been careful throughout his company's history to program shows that his audiences want to see. They have remained at the center of his thinking. This may sound obvious but, in the theater, it is much rarer than you might think.

More often, theaters program shows that they think their audience should want to see (which is not the same thing at all), or shows that will replace some of that audience with a different audience that is more desirable, or shows that the artists involved in the theater just want to do for their own artistic or political reasons. There are strong arguments for all those latter approaches, not the least of which is the creative necessity of risk and renewal, but also palpable benefits to the former. One is about to open in Glencoe.

And you should not assume that the audience wants to see the same old stuff. Writers never made that assumption, because it knew what its audience liked. But it's hardly a coincidence that the first show in the new building is to be Tom Stoppard's prismatic "Arcadia," perhaps the consummate Writers' play. The theater's audience is highly educated, like most theater audiences, actually, and it is dominated by mature thinkers. With few exceptions, Writers has programmed very smart plays, many of them classics. And the audience has been appreciative.

Sure, there have been more than a few mediocre productions of very smart plays, and a couple of total disasters, usually when Writers veered far from its comfort zone. But box office disasters have been rare.

In 2002, I wrote an article comparing Writers with the now-defunct Apple Tree Theatre of Highland Park, a company with a long and noble history of artistic strength but, in the final years, not enough support from its local community or audience. That was pretty much the lesson there.

It's also tempting to make a more recent comparison with Redmoon Theater, the venerable performance company that went under earlier this year. Since the missions of the two arts organizations could not be more different, this is not generally helpful. Except for this: Writers Theatre invested its resources in top-tier actors and compensated on a level commensurate with the highest payers in town. Redmoon did not. Redmoon got stuck with a crippling rent. Writers did not. And, thanks to now controlling its own building, will not in its future.

At this moment of celebration for Writers, it is worth noting again that Glencoe's commitment to the company, and to the building, has been a refreshing change from years of suburban opposition to arts organizations — typified by the village of Wilmette's rejection of a move there by Northlight Theatre, a proposal felled by worries about noise and parking. It seems incontrovertible that Writers will be good for Glencoe, especially its downtown business district, even as the much larger downtown in Evanston must survive without anything like the new Writers building. That mindset is beginning to change — you don't really think of Glencoe as a bedroom community of revolutionaries, but, in this regard, it has fired some early shots for the arts as an economic generator in the suburbs.

I'll wager that two decades from now, Glencoe will be known for its high-end culture. It will be seen as a nice place to retire. Its downtown will prosper.

Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune

Writers Theatre will host an opening gala at its new building in Glencoe on Monday. The first play will be Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia."

Writers Theatre will host an opening gala at its new building in Glencoe on Monday. The first play will be Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia." (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

And Writers? Will the shows match the building? Well, you'll have to wait for the reviews, of both shows and the building, since I cannot really talk about its viability until the lights are lit not on table centerpieces, but on the stage.

I have some blazing memories of the last couple of decades of work at Writers Theatre: William Brown's production of the "The Glass Menagerie" in 1998, David Cromer's production of William Inge's "Picnic" in 2008, Cromer's astonishing take on "A Streetcar Named Desire" in 2010 (the best Writers production in its history), Brown's "A Little Night Music" in 2012, Kimberly Senior's dazzling "Hedda Gabler" in 2014, and Senior's lovely production of "Marjorie Prime," just this past season. There are many more. I just deleted a few so you would not to suffer through a long list.

Writers did not need a posh building for any of those— just actors, a play and an audience, leaning forward. But it now has a grand new facility — a game-changer and a profile-raiser, no question, but really a consequence of years of smart, intimate dramas in very small rooms.

A version of this article appeared in print on February 07, 2016, in the Arts + Entertainment section of the Chicago Tribune with the headline "How Writers Theatre made world-class move - Audience-focused programming paid dividends" —
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